David Wyatt

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Cherokee NC

June 2011 NGAC Meeting

Located in western North CarolinaReservation borders the Great Smokey Mountains National ParkComprised of approx. 13,000 recognized tribal members

Cherokee

Enterprise GIS for EBCI

Economic Development

Engineering Design

Land Records Property Management

Statistical Demographic

Data

Building Inspection

Site Selection

Project Management Workflow

EnvironmentalManagement

Executive DashboardReporting

EmergencyPreparedness& Response

PermittingCompliance

Cultural Site Preservation & Protection

EDMS

GEMS

GIS

WORKFLOW

Tribal Integrated Geographic Information System

Turning Data and Information into Business-Relevant Knowledge

Infrastructure & Utilities Inventory

Management

Centralized HousingServices

1.8 Million pages of Land Records (130 years)

Local Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) filesTribal DocumentsNational ArchivesState ArchivesLand Title Records Office (LTRO)

Trust Asset and Accounting Management System (TAAMS) (US DOI, Indian trust accounts)

The goal of this Parcel Data Conversion project is to convert the Federal/ Tribal hardcopy legal land

records into spatial features.

Source Legal Deed Documents

Spatial Features

Spatial Feature Attributes

Tribal Land Records ChallengeDocuments organized by Community(?) / individual tribal member name vs. individual parcelParcel numbering /naming conventionsDuplication of documentsIdentifying the most current version of a documentNon-standardized terminology and procedures associated with possessory holdings documentsOwnership practices unique to a tribal land ownership and transaction systemDocuments lack sufficient information to accurately locate, capture

or attribute featuresOrphan /missing documents from land holdings files

140,000 documents missing basic information (parcel #, date, Community) = Costly research

Document describes sale of Parcel 32 from Edwin to Abel and Amy...

BIA Filing SystemIf the documents are organized by

individual, a copy of the document must be stored in three different folders.

Sneed, Amy

Wolfe, Abel

Crowe, Edwin

Parcel 100

Parcel 32

Parcel 57-A

If the documents are organized by parcel, a copy of the document only needs to be

stored in one folder.

In order to capture the lineage of Parcel 48, need to find all associated documents…

If the documents are organized by individual, finding all documents related to a single parcel is difficult and inefficient.

Sneed, Amy

Wolfe, Abel

Crowe, Edwin

Parcel 68Parcel 11

Parcel 175

Parcel 16Parcel 48

Parcel 36

Parcel 101Parcel 87

Parcel 48

ORIGINAL‘PARENT’PARCEL

‘CHILD’ PARCEL

‘CHILD’ PARCEL

The focus of the Parcel Data Conversion Project,is to capture the lineage of each parcel in the

Tribe’s Integrated GIS.

Scanned Source LegalDeed Documents

Conversion

As part of the parcel lineage, information is being capture for…

Current vs. Historic ParcelsDoes this parcel exist today?

Parent and Child ParcelsWhat parent parcel was a child parcel subtracted from?What child parcels were subtracted from a parent parcel?

Land Transactions:What tribal members were involved in each land transaction?When did the transaction occur?Who was the grantor and who was the grantee?

Ownership TypesSole, Tenants In Common, Life Estate, etc.

Tribal members often leave their land to their children. Over several generations this can result in a very extensive and complicated parcel lineage.

Two different plat maps. Both have the same document date

signed by BIA. Each document shows different parcel

information.

How do we determine which is the ‘correct’ or ‘current’ version?

Document # 4471

Document # 5433

Features captured

Primary Tribal Area…

Primary Tribal Area zoomed in…

… with Cherokee Community features…

… and Upper Cherokee features…

… and Lower Cherokee features.

Land Title Records Office(TAAMS data)

BLM Cadastral Surveys

Land Title Records Office (TAAMS

Survey Control Monuments

NGAC Gov to Gov Relationship With Tribes

Improve Relationships Current and Planned Activities

Input from Tribes on DOI Projects○ Tribal Land Records / TAAMS

Promote Apps for Gov To Gov collaboration○ Fee to Trust facilitation○ Tribal Boundary Encroachment○ Cultural Site Protection “Permitting”○ FGDC Cultural Resources Standards

TWO way Communication

David Wyatt

(GIS Manager)Jan Mares

(Project Manager)

ESRI India(Sub-Contrator)

John Young(Federal)

Jessie Hanson-

McFarlane(Technical Lead)

John Karagiannis

(Developer)

LeChay Arch(GIS Tech)

TemporaryStaff